


time in a bottle

by waveridden



Series: history, again [1]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: 12x100, Other, Time Travel, [john mulaney voice] this is a horror game about sports... could be a time travel romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29544102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveridden/pseuds/waveridden
Summary: Val needs an accomplice. He needs somebody who can guide him, ideally somebody who can also accompany him on heists, somebody like—There's a professor on the Sunbeams, with more doctorates than Val can count. They’re sweet but sharp, and unbearably smart. Nerd Pacheco. The perfect target.
Relationships: Val Hitherto/Nerd Pacheco
Series: history, again [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193246
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	time in a bottle

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is 12 scenes, 100 words each, inspired by [Lewis Atilio,](https://pigeonize.medium.com/) and brought to Blaseball by @crookedsaint. Nerd/Val is the wildly specific brainchild of myself and @marquis. My pitch for this ship is this fic, but it's also in [this tumblr post](https://waveridden.tumblr.com/post/636429437469081600/nerd-pacheco-for-the-character-thing) if you need convincing. CWs for vague descriptions of chronic illness.

1.

It’s not about the heist itself.

Everybody believes Val to be a robber and a liar. He makes his living traveling through time, stealing artworks for private collectors or museums. He also makes his living stealing copies for himself and selling them to the highest bidder. It follows that everyone would consider him a thief first and foremost.

But it wasn’t about the adrenaline, or the theft, or even the experience of time travel. It was about the way his breath caught in his chest the first time he saw a Morisot in person. It was always about the art.

  
  
  


2.

_ On the run _ is such a gauche turn of phrase. Val prefers to think of it in romantic terms: a daring escapee, a hero to the people, forced into hiding for the galling crime of saving art from destruction. He is right, because he wants to be right.

The immaterial plane has precious few options, so he settles down in Tokyo. There’ll be a blaseball team, eventually, and he’ll be hiding in plain sight. He can still travel, so long as he’s careful; he can learn about the museums and be untouchable. He quite likes the idea of being untouchable.

  
  
  


3.

He needs an accomplice.

He puts it off as long as possible, but he doesn’t know the rhythm of blaseball, or of this time period. He needs help. He needs somebody who can guide him, ideally somebody who can also accompany him on heists. And especially somebody too idealistic for their own good, somebody kindhearted and a little naive, somebody like—

There’s a professor on the Sunbeams, with more doctorates than Val can count. They got them out of anxiety, because they didn’t want to fail anyone’s expectations. They’re sweet but sharp, and unbearably smart.

Nerd Pacheco. The perfect target.

  
  
  


4.

The Lift know about the time travel. Nerd, on the other hand, takes some convincing. Val’s pretty sure they don’t believe him until they step into renaissance Venice.

“Oh,” Nerd says, barely a whisper. “Wow.”

Val is here to break into a house and liberate it of some finery, a mission made surprisingly difficult by Nerd’s flightiness. They wander to a market and try to haggle, in broken Italian, for some cheap pottery.

“Why?” Val asks later, curious despite himself.

Nerd smiles, clutching their new vase. “Museums don’t show the truth of it. This is what people were really like.”

  
  
  


5.

On his first dozen trips through time with Nerd Pacheco, Val steals necklaces, earrings, paintings, statuettes, candelabras, bottles of wine, and quite a lot of silverware.

Nerd, as it turns out, is an anthropologist. They prefer trinkets and keepsakes: pottery, fans, amateur glassware, children’s toys, stationery, cookbooks.

Val is happy to leave them to buy whatever they like, but then Nerd begins covering for him while he’s stealing, distracting guests at balls and diverting museum guards when Val is close to getting caught. So Val begins buying the trinkets for them. It seems like the least he could do, really.

  
  
  


6.

“I feel like I should tell you I know you’re a thief,” Nerd says.

Val has been expecting this conversation for some time. “You don’t seem terribly bothered.”

“You only steal from rich people.”

“I steal from whoever I please.”

Nerd frowns. “I don’t think you understand,” they say, with some steel behind it. “If you want me to continue being your translator and historian, starting right now, you only steal from rich people. Or museums about to burn down.”

Val smiles, wide and delighted. “It’d be hard to find a new historian,” he murmurs, and Nerd rolls their eyes.

  
  
  


7.

Working with Nerd is better than working around Nerd. Val is social in a very particular way; he knows how to schmooze, to navigate the hazards of a ballroom. But Nerd understands people in a way that Val never has. Nerd knows cultural touchstones, the right questions to ask. Val can talk to the rich assholes until he’s blue in the face, but Nerd can get the waitstaff to share secrets.

They speak a dozen languages, all with varying degrees of fluency. More than Val. He wishes, sometimes, that he could understand what they say. Especially when it’s about him.

  
  
  


8.

Professor Pacheco, the distinguished, does not participate in heists very often — not in the actual taking, at least. They’ll lace up Val’s corset and they’ll run interference, but they try to avoid the actual stealing. Val leaves them out of his plans, an accomplice but never a colleague.

Except for one time, a party where the host had been particularly rude to Val for no reason. He’s in a foul mood, until he notices Nerd’s holding something. “Darling,” he says curiously, "what is that?”

Nerd grins, sharp and bright, and holds up the host’s pocketwatch. “He should’ve been nicer.”

  
  
  


9.

He never knew Nerd before the second sun, before the Sunbeams had bits of their souls overwritten by a black hole. There are days that Nerd is fatigued, snappish, too tired to move.

Val learns to navigate these days. He learns the migraines versus the exhaustion versus the brain fog. He doesn’t like to travel without Nerd, not anymore, but he’ll bring them food from a vendor that they enjoyed, or pieces of pottery for their growing collection.

It’s awkward, the first dozen times. Val doesn’t typically stay past the delivery. But Nerd seems grateful nonetheless, and that’s worth it.

  
  
  


10.

This is a bad idea. Undeniably terrible. But it’s rare that they get caught, rarer still that they get chased out of a high society ball.

Nerd tugs Val into an alley. “Is this enough?”

“Maybe,” Val says. He’s exhausted from the running, pulse pounding. “We need to hide our faces.”

“How?”

It’s a terrible idea, hinging on words unspoken, on a hope, an understanding— “Do you trust me?”

“Always.”

Nerd does not seem as surprised as Val expects when he leans up to kiss them. They tangle a hand in his hair, and he nearly drops the stolen sculpture.

  
  
  


11.

They don’t talk about it.

Val wants to talk about it. Val wants to ask all the childish romantic questions his heart desires. Val wants a love story, an adventure for the ages, sweeping, glittering grandeur.

He never considered love before, not in any meaningful way. He always expected it would happen with wooing and drama, but he supposes he shouldn’t expect that from Nerd Pacheco.

Instead he buys them pottery, and they steal him earrings. He dances with them at balls. They kiss the back of his hand and Val realizes that they don’t need to talk about it.

  
  
  


12.

“I should’ve known you’d like impressionism,” Nerd muses.

They’re standing in front of a Morisot, the first one Val ever saw. He has to will himself not to cry. “I like the abstraction,” he answers. “The gentle edges.”

“You would,” Nerd says, and when he turns they just smile indulgently. “You like the lack of clarity. I have you figured out, Hitherto.”

“You do,” Val admits, quieter than he intends. Nerd’s smile widens. “Shall we move on now, professor?”

“No,” Nerd says. Their arm tightens around Val’s waist, holding him secure. “No, I’d like to stay here a while longer.”

**Author's Note:**

> In my heart the Morisot painting is [Hanging the Laundry out to Dry](https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.66426.html).
> 
> You can find me @waveridden on both Tumblr and Twitter, talking about both normal Blaseball thoughts and abnormal Blaseball thoughts. Thanks for reading!


End file.
